Now that I’m a student, and I can get to all my classes and volunteering by train and such, I’ll be selling my car. Of course, I figure I’ve got to fix the car up enough so that the Check Engine light stays off first. And then it’s all Zipcar, BART and biking for me.

Body: 2011 “Fuji Absolute 3.0″ hybrid. Color: Grey with orange on the inside of the chain stays and underside of the seat stays. Serial ICFU12I01883. That serial number could be mistaken for ICFU12IO1883. 21″ frame. 23.6” back to front. Aluminum.

Seat: Black with an orange swish. It is secured to the frame with a length of wire.

Wheels: “Fuji Aero-V 25 700C/622 Etrto”. Both the front and rear wheel are secured with Pinhead Locks locking wheel hubs.Update 2/13/13: I also got a Pinhead seat post lock and saddle lock. And apparently a Gator Grip tool can defeat these locks so Pinhead now gives away a locking washer thing on their website that prevents that problem.

Accessories:Kickstand: On 8-23-13 I added a Greenfield Rear Mount Stabilizer Kickstand, adding 14 ounces to the bike. I tried adding a regular Greenfield kickstand but it had the same problem that ALL regular kickstand have, all the way back to when I was a kid: no matter how hard you tighten it down, the mount sometimes swivels on the bike, messing everything up.

For the little I’ve ridden around, she rides like a dream. Of course, my last bike was a POS. I originally had a moderately crappy Burning Man bike. But at Burning Man 2009 it got stolen. After the end of the event, I went to center camp and stole a comparably crappy bike from the abandoned bike pile. When I was there, I got into this evil-eye discussion at center camp with a guy stealing his own bikes, but that’s a story of another time…

The new bike was actually quite a step down from my old bike. The steering was loose such that it was best to not steer too quickly, the front brake had virtually no grab, the handlebars had rolled down into an awkward position, the bike was several inches too small for me (I had extended the seatpost to it’s limit to no avail), it had big inefficient knobby tires, the rear brakes only worked moderately well, and it had been spray painted (partially and poorly) an awful shade of brown. That is how I rode it on the playa and that is pretty much how I rode it for 2 years. It’s a good thing I didn’t ride it often, otherwise, I’d be dead now. It is now terrorizing some kind soul at the San Francisco bike kitchen.

I don’t say this to disparage them but in San Francisco, crack heads are not afraid to wear last year’s designer colors. Case in point, a common conversation among bicyclists is “they stole THAT piece of crap?”

Painting it ugly will just mean I get to ride an ugly bike til it gets stolen.

I have to say I used to own a sweet cannondale when I lived in SF. Bought not from crack heads, but rather industrial upper middle class teens supplementing their allowance to buy nugs in the panhandle. They’d steal bikes from their neighbors, ride them to the panhandle and trade…$75 wholesale nugs got one a $1000+ bike easy back in the day. And when it was stole, I wasn’t upset!

It’s about an 80/20 split, favoring the bike. I basically only take BART if I have to. I was really sick and only able to bike two days of the last two weeks and I thought I was going to go insane. I missed my bike and BART gets old, what with all the other people and lack of loud humming that I can do on my bike as I zip downtown… :-)

Notes:
* I adjusted the handlebars all the way up because I’m lazy and like to sit upright. Which is also to say that I’m glad they are adjustable.
* I’ve had 1 flat tire in about 300(?) miles of riding with the puncture resistant tires I got.
* I got pedals that have SPD on one side and regular on the other
* Sometimes when I’m pushing the bike by hand the pedals advance like 1/2 a revolution. I think that’s a sign it might want a little oil. I’ve oiled the chain twice… eh, I’m not too worried.